Established tourism source markets for South Africa, such as the US, UK, Germany, France and Netherlands, all showed growth for 2014, compared to 2013, while emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil have experienced a significant decline.

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This is according to stats published by Statistics SA (Stats SA) on Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to the stats, SA experienced a 2.9% increase in overseas tourists over the year, with 2 254 709 overseas tourists visiting the country last year, compared to 2 190 641 in 2013.

The largest markets were the UK with 401 914 tourists (compared to 388 336 in 2013), the US with 300 255 (compared to 294 483) and Germany with 274 571 (compared to 249 117). Germany showed the greatest growth at 10.2%, while the UK and US experienced a growth of 3.5% and respectively.

Arrivals from China dropped 24.7% from 110 035 in 2013 to 82 905 in 2014, while arrivals from India dropped 8.5% from 93 583 to 85 639 and Brazil dropped 14.7% from 45 813 to 39 082. 

Stats SA has stopped counting people transiting through SA as tourists. As a result of the revision, in order to compare the 2014 figures with 2013, it is necessary to deduct the transit figures from the 2013 totals, which Tourism Update has done for the purpose of this report.